Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Israel and the Enemies of Peace (and Humanity)

If it is to succeed as a Jewish multi-ethnic
society, Israel
as a social-democracy must marginalize and prevent from appearing attractive,
any group that is radically theocratic or radically secular - the fringes must
be prevented from mainstreaming their beliefs.This is the challenge of all democracies and when successful, the best
way to defund them. In his new book about political order and political decay
Francis Fukuyama says that “natural human sociability is based on kin selection
and reciprocal altruism.” Radical movements are not interested in mutuality.
They are only ever interested in tearing down the edifice of society and
rebuilding it in their own embittered and openly hostile image.Their vision is dependent on a culture of
alienation, envy and “us and them” competition.They do not like human beings but see all of us as sheep, to be
led.For them, free will is a fantasy
and a dangerous one at that.

If the ideal is democratic progressivism
(belief in change, progress, improvement or reform) then Socialism, Islamism
and Pan-Arabism represent its reactionary antithesis because their twin
original sins are first, their enthusiastic adoption of intimidation and fear
to silence their enemies and second, their acceptance of the principle of
violent overthrow of the established order.They are the ultimate fascists. Their belief system is predicated on
silencing contrary opinions; embracing terrorism and destruction as the means
to their end.

For some, the compelling argument for revolutionary
change is to study Stalinism or Wahhabism. They view murderous excess as a
necessary consequence of revolutionary upheaval, dismissing any disagreeable
ethical complications as a mere detail of history; or if pushed, an
eschatological necessity.Their
contemporary apostles are Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, all, contemporary exponents of terror.

The Jewish polity was dragged into conflict
with its neighbors by their opponent’s reactionary Hitlerite response to Jewish
self-determination in the Holy Land.Israel did not willingly march as
one towards war.It was an Arab and
Muslim attempted genocide of the Jews of Palestine in 1948 that began all the
wars that have ensued since 1948.And
only a fool would accept the false propaganda message that the murderous
rhetoric of pre- (and post) 1948 Arab Muslim leaders was no more than a
rallying cry to unite the Arab masses.History has proven that those that start the slaughter, particularly
when urged on by history and faith do not stop midway.Apostles of death gather acolytes to their
cause and their enthusiasm often not only exceeds their own but once started is
rarely sated.

Israel was dragged into war in 1948; repeated overtures towards Arab
compatriots were rebuffed but the killer blow was not Jewish terror but the
flight of the Arab leadership to their mansions in the various Arab capitals.
It left the Arab Fedayeen not just leaderless but at the mercy of scavenging
Arab gangs and paramilitary units whose lust for booty left them unconcerned
for the identity of their victims.

The first wave Arab elite fled Israel
prior to the 1947 United Nations vote.They fled to the comfort of their homes in Damascus,
Cairo, Beirut and
Amman.The second wave left with the 1947 vote. In 1922 one and a half
million Greeks "were exchanged" by Turkey for half a million European Turks.
After World War Two some twelve million ethnic Germans fled or were driven out
from Eastern Europe with at least half a
million of those German refugees dying along the way.Only the Arab nations were happy to sacrifice
their refugee brothers and sisters to intergenerational indigence in camps they
patrolled to prevent their escape thus incubating a captive population of
embittered prisoners, abandoned by their fellow Muslims and fellow Arabs as
political pawns in their war against the Jews. While they cried crocodile tears
they ransomed future generations to wars that were as unnecessary as they were
without possible benefit to the Arab nations that waged them.The only reason to not absorb their fellow
Arabs was to fulfill an Arab Muslim vision which has always been one of overthrow,
conquest and annihilation of its Jewish foe and their non-Arab neighbors.When Israel
vacated Gaza in 2005 American Jewish donors
purchased the Israeli greenhouse industry that was based in Gaza
and handed them over to the Palestinian Authority so that the Gaza economy would have a good beginning for
growth.The Palestinians destroyed those
greenhouses and used them instead as military complexes that concealed their
tunnels.They were confident that the
non-Muslim world would continue to fund their attacks on the Jewish state no
matter what.

The Jewish-Israeli vision has moved from
accommodating difference to an internalized understanding that their implacable
Muslim enemy can never be trusted.

An image, posted on Fatah’s official Facebook
page on the occasion of Fatah’s 50th anniversary (on the last day of 2014)
depicted a mound of skulls in the foreground, marked with Jewish stars, against
a backdrop of a Fatah flag and a semi-automatic rifle.According to J.A.C Brown (Techniques of
Persuasion) “The first task of the propagandist is to catch his audience’s
attention….a considerable period of time may have to be spent in building up a
receptive frame of mind.”One does not
need to look too deeply into the purpose behind serving up such an image on
Fatah’s official internet page.Given
the horrific cruelty of the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria the banality of
such images says much about the true vision of Palestine’s rank and file, not just their
leaders.Rationalization (of a course of
action), Identification (of an enemy), Conformity (to an image), Repetition (to
focus the faithful to a desired outcome) are all part of the propagandists arsenal.Even if challenged and removed, the image has
served its primary purpose.

Given the history and ongoing propaganda /
terror war of Hamas, the Palestinians and Arab imperialist nations there is but
one inescapable truth and that is that far from being progressive, the
Palestinians and their supporters are reactionary bigots who are incapable of
sharing anything other than a violent and eternally acquisitive vision.The logical extension of this conclusion is
that their supporters in the church – especially those who validate replacement
theology as a means to delegitimize the Jewish faith and the only Jewish nation
state, cannot ever legitimately claim to be the natural heirs to progressivism
but are, in reality, reactionary, supporters of Arab revanchism; and dare I say
it, their antizionism is no more than a poor excuse for their recidivist antisemitism.
They buttress their cause with ready-made slogans about their enemy (us) and
familiarize their supporters with lies so that their consciences will be salved
when they destroy us.Their intimidation leads to censorship. True to
the principles of fascism they demonize their opponent in order to silence them
(us).

Israel and its supporters continue to refuse to fight a propaganda
war even though their enemies see the propaganda war as essential to destroying
us.They refuse to fight fire with
fire.They fail to highlight the
baseless hate that feeds their enemies passions; they do not hold up the
Jewish-Israeli-Zionist vision against the not so public vision of their
murderous foes with all their terrible cruelty and fundamentalist
inhumanity.Zionism, by its utopian
nature was naïve nevertheless its founding vision remains as always, the only
truly progressive way forward for the Near-East.Israel’s muscular approach or
worse, its indifference to a widening circle of enemies in the greater non-Arab
world will need to be addressed in advance of the next war simply because the
alternative is an endless cycle of violent confrontation.